Samsung Gear S3 review: Big on battery, iPhone compatible Specification Features Price : The Samsung Gear S3 is bigger and better, especially on the battery, than the previous Gear S2. The Gear S3 lasts at least 60% longer with at least 4 days of usage on a single charge.

The Gear S3 comes with two buttons on the right. The lower one toggles between the app menu, home screen and the setting menu. The top button activates the watch-face if the S3 goes on sleep mode. The heart-rate sensor is at the bottom of the watch just like its predecessor.

The display on the watch is a thing of beauty. The S3 comes with a bigger 1.3-inch, 360 x 360 AMOLED touchscreen display, so there is more screen estate for that Tizen OS to shine.

It is bright and vibrant and colours are rich, making it undoubtedly one of the best smartwatch screens out there. There are no problems when viewing the screen at night. Samsung has also used Corning’s new Gorilla Glass SR+ display tech that provides improved scratch and damage resistance as well as reduced surface reflection.

Gear S3 simply the best that it can connect to Android or iOS (iPhones) even if itself runs on Tizen. While Apple Watches don’t connect to Android, other Android watches have very basic functionality on iPhones. This makes the Gear S3 the most agile smartwatch in the market.

Bluetooth is the only mean to pair the Gear S3 with other smartphone via the Gear Manager app, but it also means that one can pair the smartwatch with Bluetooth headphones. There is 4 GB of onboard storage and the ability to transfer music from your phone to your watch. The only downside is that you have to do it all through Samsung’s own Music app. It is, at least, a very straightforward process.

Samsung is working to do its best to help the Gear S3 be a standalone device, including Wi-Fi and an LTE version of the Frontier, which uses an e-Sim card. At the moment, that LTE flavoured model currently only works with certain networks and requires a separate data plan.

The Samsung Gear S3 has an IP68 water resistance. That means you can simply wash your smartwatch or take a shower with it.

In terms of health and fitness:

Gear S3 tries to be as good as any other smartwatch. There is built-in GPS to track activities like running and cycling, plus a host of sensors including a heart rate monitor, barometer and speedometer. Automatic exercise recognition works with multiple activities and rep counting helps you keep a check on sets of lunges, crunches, squats and burpees.

There is also fitness tracking features giving you a breakdown of steps, elevation and calorie burn plus it’ll give you a vibrating nudge when you’ve been sitting down too long and not been active. Everything is powered by the steadily improving S Health platform. It also has an automatic heart rate monitor process that simply keeps tracking healthy heart rates.